Liberating Planet Earth
by Gary DeMar by Gary DeMar
The Liberation of the State 103 will of the people as a collective, the forces of history, the Volk, the nation, the spirit of the age, etc. But he does not represent a sovereign God to the people, or the people to a sovereign God. Second, there is hierarchy. A top-down system of bureaucratic rule is established. It is not a bottom-up system of appeals courts, with a large degree of personal initiative, responsibility, and freedom at the lower levels. The emphasis is on the omniscience of the state, computerized planning, massive statistics, and central management of all of life. Third, there are laws– myriads of laws. These laws are so numerous and so complex that only bureaucrats who make it their lives to know the rules, and lawyers who get paid to interpret them, can understand them. This leads to elitism. Also, these laws are constantly being rewritten: evolutionary justice in a world of shifting principles. Fourth, there isjudgmmt. The state possesses almost unlimited powers of executing judgment. An ever-growing army of enforcers announce arbitrary judgments that increase the power of the state. Fifth, there is an attempted continuity through taxes and confiscation. Rising taxes weaken all other institutions and strengthen the hand of the state. Yet God’s people today do not seem to understand the extent of their bondage. The Right of Appeal In the Bible, the right of appeal was limited to “great matters.” Cases involving fundamental principle, and those that would be likely to have important repercussions throughout the society, were the ones that were to be sent up the judicial chain of appeals. In order to limit the number of cases being sent to Moses for a final decision, the judges at each level must have had the right to refuse to reconsider the verdict of a lower court. If the judge did not believe that the decision of the lower court was in error, and if the higher court decided that the case was of relatively little importance as a precedent for society at large, the case was settled. Access to Moses’ supreme court was restricted to great cases, and
104 Liberating Planet Earth this required screening by the lower courts. Jethro understood that the limitations on Moses’ time were paralyzing the justice system. Obviously, if every case considered by the lower courts eventually wound up in front of Moses, the hierarchy of courts would have provided no respite for Moses. The screening feature of the court system was fundamental to its success. This meant that the majority of litigants had to content themselves with something less than perfect justice. Jethro understood that endless litigation threatens the survival of the system of@stice. Losers in a case clearly have an incentive to appeal, if the possibility of overturning the decision of the lower court judge offers hope. So there has to be restraint on the part of higher court judges to refrain from constant overturning of lower court decisions. Furthermore, a society composed of people who always are going to court against each other will suffer fmm clogged courts and delayed justice. A society, in short, which is not governed by se~-restrained people, and which does not provide other means of settling disputes besides the civil government — church courts, arbitration panels, mediation boards, industry-wide courts, and so forth — will find itself paralyzed. Breakdown of the U.S. Court System Macldin Fleming is a justice of the California Court of Appeal. His book, The Price of P~ect Justice (Basic Books, 1974), documents the increasing paralysis of the legal system in the United States. It is this quest for earth~ pegtection – a messianic, God-imitating quest – that has been the U.S. legal system’s undoing. The fuel that powers the modern legal engine is the ideal of perfectibility- the concept that with the expenditure of sufficient time, patience, energy, and money it is possible eventually to achieve perfect justice in all legal process. For the past twenty years this ideal has dominated legal thought, and the ideal has been widely translated into legal action. Yet a look at almost any specific area of the judicial process will disclose that the noble ideal has consistently spawned results that can only be described as
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- Page 136 and 137: 10 THE INEVITABILITY OF LIBERATION
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- Page 156 and 157: CONCLUSION All things have been del
- Page 158 and 159: Conclusion 151 or our civil governm
The Liberation of the State 103<br />
will of the people as a collective, the forces of history, the Volk, the<br />
nation, the spirit of the age, etc. But he does not represent a sovereign<br />
God to the people, or the people to a sovereign God.<br />
Second, there is hierarchy. A top-down system of bureaucratic<br />
rule is established. It is not a bottom-up system of appeals courts,<br />
with a large degree of personal initiative, responsibility, and freedom<br />
at the lower levels. The emphasis is on the omniscience of the<br />
state, computerized planning, massive statistics, and central<br />
management of all of life.<br />
Third, there are laws– myriads of laws. These laws are so numerous<br />
and so complex that only bureaucrats who make it their<br />
lives to know the rules, and lawyers who get paid to interpret<br />
them, can understand them. This leads to elitism. Also, these<br />
laws are constantly being rewritten: evolutionary justice in a<br />
world of shifting principles.<br />
Fourth, there isjudgmmt. The state possesses almost unlimited<br />
powers of executing judgment. An ever-growing army of enforcers<br />
announce arbitrary judgments that increase the power of<br />
the state.<br />
Fifth, there is an attempted continuity through taxes and<br />
confiscation. Rising taxes weaken all other institutions and<br />
strengthen the hand of the state. Yet God’s people today do not<br />
seem to understand the extent of their bondage.<br />
The Right of Appeal<br />
In the Bible, the right of appeal was limited to “great matters.”<br />
Cases involving fundamental principle, and those that would be<br />
likely to have important repercussions throughout the society,<br />
were the ones that were to be sent up the judicial chain of appeals.<br />
In order to limit the number of cases being sent to Moses for a<br />
final decision, the judges at each level must have had the right to<br />
refuse to reconsider the verdict of a lower court. If the judge did<br />
not believe that the decision of the lower court was in error, and if<br />
the higher court decided that the case was of relatively little importance<br />
as a precedent for society at large, the case was settled.<br />
Access to Moses’ supreme court was restricted to great cases, and
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